Chemistry Takes a Bath: Reactions in Aqueous Media

Chemical reactions in water underpin the very existence of life. But to synthetic chemists, water is usually considered an enemy, lurking in the shadows, waiting to reduce yields and destroy reproducibility. Indeed, chemists often take great pains to exclude even traces of water from their reaction media, and if water does make an appearance in a synthetic procedure, it is only in the course of workup. Instead, fine-chemical syntheses tend to use petroleum-derived solvents, which contribute to a vast pool of toxic waste,(1,2) and water-sensitive reactions, which complicate process development and oftentimes create safety hazards.(3) Thus, there has been an increasing push in industry and academia to replace reactions run in traditional organic solvents with alternatives that function in aqueous media.